Watchmen

Movie name: Watchmen
Year of release: 2009
Director: Zack Snyder
Stars: Jackie Earle Haley, Billy Crudup, Patrick Wilson, Carla Gugino, Matthew Goode, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Malin Akerman, Matt Frewer, Stephen McHattie, Laura Mennell, Rob LaBelle
Genre: Action, Fantasy, Sci-Fi
Score out of ten (whole numbers only): 6

Synopsis:
Zack Snyder's third film is another adaptation of a graphic novel, following his hugely successful "300" (an adaptation of Frank Miller's graphic novel). "Watchmen" has been a project that went through different hands, from Terry Gilliam to Paul Greengrass, and following the success of Zack Snyder's first two films ("Dawn of the Dead" was the first), he was chosen to bring the project to life. Alan Moore responsible for writing the graphic novel (he also wrote V for Vendetta, From Hell and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) has long distanced himself from the film adaptations of his work, and this was no exception. The film starts by introducing us to the death of a character called the Comedian. We find out he was part of a group of masked superheroes named Watchmen. The year is 1985 and the heroes have long been in retirement, since the 70s, when they helped the US and president Richard Nixon win the Vietnam War. The world is at the brink of nuclear war and the only one who can stop it, is one of the heroes called Dr. Manhattan, a blue superbeing who was transformed after an experiment gone wrong. The film follows the lives of these super heroes, flawed human beings with their own hopes and fears, all anchored in the dark character that is Roscharch, the one desperately trying to find the culprit behind the death of their former colleague. This faithful adaptation of the comic book, oscillates between being fantastically enthralling and visually stunning and at points borderline cheesy and ill conceived. The film hits the high marks visually, with the attention to detail and the production design and the photography of Larry Fong, that makes everything look eternally gloom, but on the other hand, it has pacing problems, sometimes over explaining things or presenting a very dubious ideology. The acting is also mixed, with high points being given to Jackie Earle Haley (who gives the best performance) and Billy Crudup, with low points being given to the wooden Malin Akerman and Matthew Goode. To sum it up, it's an entertaining, yet uneven film. Notheless worth checking out.